Casting the Dead Beast’s Eye
Scuttling forward on their bellies, Bad Bone and his companions peeked out from the protecting cover of pine trees and ferns. Not far away, crowds of unsavory looking beasts—mostly Wolves and Cougars, with a sprinkling of Mink—loitered around three sturdy, but well-worn log buildings. Food was being served on tin plates handed out through the large window of a cabin used as a canteen. Smithy beasts labored to repair broken wagon fittings and applied grease to wheels. Here and there, Skull Buzzards kept watch over lines of trallés roped together, while handlers led the high-domed tortoises, 2 or 3 at a time, to the livery barn for water and to get their feet checked. Several Royal Patrol officers sat around a table on the porch of a two-story log inn, talking with a richly-dressed Wolf, near whom knelt four Mink servants.
Rows of peddlers’ tents jammed a narrow alley between the inn and the livery. Bad Bone’s attention was drawn particularly to a middle-aged female Wood Cow, who sat under a tree near the livery, carving wagon wheel spokes. Her bearing and manner were familiar—“she’s a Wood Cow from the Hedgelands, or I have no sense in my head,” he thought. Looking more closely, he could see that the Wood Cow’s long white shaggy hair, falling down across her neck and shoulders, almost hid an iron collar encircling her neck. Through the shadows, his eyes could make out a chain attached to the collar. “Helga’s mother! She’s a prisoner!” Bad Bone breathed softly.
“A slave, you mean,” Bormarojey whispered. “She’s well-known to us—a legend, actually—name of Helbara. She caused some trouble for the High One many years ago, and she and her family were sold as slaves. When the Buzzards came to take them, she fought like a thousand demons to protect her family. In the end, they all escaped except her. The High One ordered her to be kept as his personal household slave—to humiliate her. But she sang such mournful songs and called so loudly on the Ancient Ones day and night, that no one in the royal household could sleep. He sent her to this remote caravan way-station, hoping that would be the end of her trouble-making.”
Bormarojey paused as some Skull Buzzards looked a little too attentively toward their hiding place. They soon turned away, however, and showed no further sign of suspicion, so he continued his story. “This is a perfect place for her,” he said, grinning at Bad Bone. “The High One has forgotten her, thinking that this distant exile was the end of her...Which suits our purposes fine!” he added with a slight chuckle.
“How does that poor beast being in slavery suit any good purpose?” Bad Bone asked.
“See the hat that Helbara is wearing?” Bormarojey asked. “You see the brim is rolled on one side? Rolled brim in front, the caravan is bound for Shell Kral; rolled brim at the back, it’s going to Hedgelands via Port Newolf; and if the hat is hanging on a peg, it’s going to Hedgelands via the Norder Passage. The reason we come here to scout is to learn which caravans we will raid later on!”
“She helps you to raid the royal caravans?” Bad Bone exclaimed, struggling to keep a low voice, despite his astonishment. “Don’t they get suspicious when their caravans constantly get robbed?”
“Here’s the deal,” his Squirrel companion replied. “We don’t raid all the caravans. There’s no pattern to our attacks. Even Helbara doesn’t know when we come to ‘cast the dead beast’s gaze’ on the way-station. She puts up her signals and never knows which ones we see—but she hears about the raids from the furious traders.” Bormarojey grinned widely. “The High One doesn’t suspect that the slave he humiliated and banished now guides Borf raiders to plunder his trallés!”